In an annual update to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein noted a list of concerns among African nations – and also a few bright spots. The human rights chief noted The Gambia’s announcement of a death penalty moratorium last…
Environmental champion Youba Sokona’s resignation is effective April 30, so as of Sunday the Malian scholar will no longer serve in his leadership role at the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI). At first glance, it may seem hardly newsworthy and entirely forgivable to not know who Sokona and the AREI…
As part of the global effort to combat climate change, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has issued its first annual Airborne Dust Bulletin to better understand how dust and sand storms impact humans – and how humans contribute too. “Every year, an estimated 2,000 million tons of dust is emitted into…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
”Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.” On March 3, in a prescient last Twitter message sent by United Nations expert Zaida Catalan before she disappeared in the Kasai region of Democratic Republic of Congo, Catalan passed along this ancient proverb often attributed to…
South African President Jacob Zuma welcomed participants to the United Nations World Water Day summit in Durban on Wednesday, to begin a three-day conference on global water resources. The meeting served as launch for the 2017 World Water Development Report, with its emphasis on waste water resources and their recapture….
The Aid & Development Africa Summit beings Tuesday in Nairobi, with the event featuring more than 70 speakers whose expertise includes health, humanitarian aid and resilience, and finance. Among those speakers is Ronald Rwakigumba of Mercy Corps, who serves as the Uganda country coordinator for the Agri-Fin Mobile Program, designed to…
Late Sunday night, the United States Embassy in Yaounde sent out its “congratulations to the indomitable Lions” message to celebrate the Africa Cup of Nations victory in Cameroon. It was an exciting match, and both Christian Bassogog’s MVP award and the the 2-1 victory over Egypt he helped to deliver…
A woman from Sudan, living in an Ethiopian refugee camp, explains that drought sent her family to live by the river, but they couldn’t stay there because of the fighting. A Somali farmer living in Uganda tells a similar story of drought and conflict that made it impossible to stay…
The latest round in Turkey’s internal war on Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen movement followers came late Saturday, when new decrees appeared in the nation’s Official Gazette. They extend the crackdown on Turkey’s media outlets, establish control over university administration and push Turkey’s initial state of emergency into January. Another 10,000…
The International Criminal Court in The Hague acknowledged South Africa’s intent to withdraw from the Rome Statute on Saturday, while expressing its widely shared concern that other African nations will follow Pretoria’s lead and separate from their ICC treaty agreements. “Although withdrawing from a treaty is a sovereign act, I…
German Chancellor Angela Merkel begins a trip to Africa Sunday, visiting the nations of Mali and Niger to discuss their security and counterterrorism strategies before heading to Ethiopia. She’ll arrive in Addis Ababa amid the nation’s escalating unrest and the international attention to its alleged human rights violations, issues that…
The annual palm festival at Dzodze, in the rural Ketu North district of Ghana, has known better times. The oil palm industry on which the region depends is described as anemic – which might well describe the Ghanaian economy as a whole, even with a modest boost from its recent…
U.S. President Barack Obama was in Washington D.C. on Saturday, speaking at the dedication of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with leaders in Vienna to discuss EU borders and migrants. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari met with media to wrap up…
As British ambassador Michael Nevin leaves his four-year posting at Lilongwe, his recent remarks about Malawi’s future are disheartening. Nevin, who will be replaced by new High Commissioner Holly Tett, irked some Malawi government officials when he said the nation is significantly more corrupt now, and that the rule of…
With sixty percent of its population living in informal settlements, Nairobi City is yet to fully address the problem of water accessibility and sanitation for more than half of its 3.4 million residents. The government is now planning to change this. Barely two miles east of Nairobi’s central business district,…
Anthony Langat is a freelance journalist based in Kenya and specializes in reporting on human rights issues, governance, security and climate change.